wtf

A paragraph from a review of "The Ex," the new Zach Braff/Amanda Peet/Jason Bateman movie, in this week's The Triangle, Drexel's student newspaper:

"Amanda Peet on the other hand doesn't seem to have much of a role in the movie and is wasted in this role, especially after seeing her on TV's "Studio 60." She never seems to get into character and never once exhibits any maternal instincts when pregnant or after" (emphasis mine).

WHAT?! Thank you so much, sir, for thinking that all women have to be stereotypically pregnant. Ugh, nauseating.

Hello from Heaven

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I finished this book on the train on Friday right before arriving at the Neshaminy Falls stop, which is one stop before mine. Also right before my train decided it could go on no longer, and died, right there on the tracks. All I had on me was it and the New Yorker that I had finished during lunch on Thursday, so I got to listen to the people around me grumble, including a woman who claimed that “SEPTA does this on purpose,” something that even I don’t entirely believe. Yes, I believe that they use trains that are ancient and smell and are dirty and then continue to hike up the prices, but, while I am always game for a good conspiracy theory, I don’t really believe that SEPTA has their trains break down on purpose. That would just be silly. Unless they are trying to prove something to the state in order to get the funding they want. Interesting….

But anyway, while I sat in the non-air conditioned train and then later stood outside on the platform waiting for a new train to come along for forty-five minutes (so much for getting out of work two hours early) I got to thinking about The Lovely Bones as my sweat stains grew and grew (for those of you who seem to be under the assumption that girls don’t sweat, I am living proof that they do (and I’m not just counting while at the gym, I’m talking any time), and can do so profusely—even in the dead of winter). I was thinking that I really enjoyed The Lovely Bones but also found it pretty depressing. The entire premise of the book is that a girl, Susie, is raped and murdered and she is narrating the lives of her family and friends from heaven. The first chapter goes through her rape and murder, and I must admit that during this time, even though I knew that it was going to happen, I kept thinking to myself, do not follow him! Do not go in there! I was expressing concern over a character who told me in the first paragraph that she was already dead.

And being dead doesn’t sound too great either. Sebold’s version of heaven sucks, quite frankly, and I can’t imagine anyone thinking it sound better than earth. Susie’s heaven is what she wants it to be, in her case the high school that she never got to attend with some added features, like the gazebo that she sits in while watching her family and friends on earth. She shares a duplex with another girl, although apart from mentioning where she lives, the duplex is never mentioned again. I guess Sebold just wanted to explain that those in heaven do have a “home.” Not entirely sure.

So Susie spends most of her time watching her family and friends on earth: the investigation of her death, her family and friends grieving and eventually trying to get past it. Her guardian in heaven says that she can watch for as long as she wants to but eventually she won’t want to anymore. We get about two seconds of her not wanting to anymore at the end of the book, and that heaven consists of her playing with her grandfather (who is also obviously dead). But the grandfather and other characters that she encounters in heaven don’t always exist in her heaven, they just visit every so often. Does this sound good to anyone else? Sound like eternal happiness and glee and whatever else religion says that heaven is? While I think it would be fun to see what other people are doing whenever you want, I would find it boring after awhile since you can never partake in the events. You are just a spectator. Also, there are parts where she “watches” while her sister and others have sex. I’m not entirely sure if she watched the entire time, but she watched enough to know that it happened, and I find this immensely disturbing.

So is Sebold trying to get at something here? Trying to tell us that the heaven we are told about does not actually exist? I guess I’ll try to come back after I die and let you all know the answer. If there is an afterlife, that is.

Sebold does show how differently people cope with and mourn a death. I wonder how many couples divorce after a child dies, regardless if they have other children. I never really thought of this until this book, but I’m sure the stress takes a toll, especially if there was a rift before the death. At first I thought the mother leaving was overly cold, but now I see that it makes sense for her character. Which leads me to another reason why I don’t want to have kids: you lose your own identity. I would not be Lindsay anymore, I would be so-and-so’s mother. It’s no longer about you, ever, and won’t be for the rest of your life. And after finally figuring out who I am, I rather like myself, and am not, nor will I ever be, ready to just throw it away so I can have some spawn to love me and mold them into little me’s. The mother in the book couldn’t get over not having an identity anymore and look what happened—your relationship with your husband is in pieces and your two children who are left are messed up and have issues as a result of your abandoning them. I realize this is selfish on my part, but I don’t care as long as I recognize that. Perhaps you should think first before bringing people into the world? That’s all I’m asking.

I didn’t realize until halfway through this book that it is set in Norristown, which is in a suburb of Philadelphia. This was exciting, especially since so few books are set around here. However, when writing a book, I think that you should do a little research if you are going to include details such as the name of a county in the area, as Bucks county is not a possessive, nor has it ever been. According to Wikipedia, Bucks is the abbreviation for Buckinghamshire (which I never knew before, but ok!) and that would obviously never be possessive (although it would be possessive if renamed Genius' County, as it is often referred to as the "the genius belt," mostly because I live there.) Since Sebold grew up in the area, I found it strange that she listed it as Buck’s county, but I guess I’ll have to get past it. Also, there is a part of the book where she describes Susie riding trains in and out of Suburban station and she said that she would ride it out to around Overbrook. The Overbrook station is on the R5 Paoli/Thorndale line, and Norristown is on the R6 Norristown line. I found it strange that she mentioned Overbrook since it has nothing to do with the setting. Why not mention Manayunk or Ivy Ridge, which are both stops on the R6 Norristown, the train that Susie would have ridden into the city when she was alive? This bothered me. It also bothered me that while on this train Susie listened to the click click of the high heels of women on the station platform turn soft as they hit the carpeted aisles of the trains. This is especially interesting since as far as I researched (thank you, Wikipedia), SEPTA still uses the same model trains that they did in the 1970s and 1980s, and none of these trains have carpet anywhere on them. They have a rubber-type substance (which, while I’m on the subject, have groove lines in them that run parallel to your foot if you were walking. Would it not make more sense traction-wise to have them run perpendicular to your foot? I’m just saying, SEPTA. Could you use your brains for once?) on the aisles and a linoleum-type substance on the train floor, but no carpet. Unless you can count the train with the disco seat covers which resemble the carpeted walls in the Rainbow Room at Sesame Place (which, sadly, no longer exists). It’s pretty clear that people from the area of where you set your book are going to pick apart details like this, so why not do a little research first? As for the carpet thing, I’m sure that was included as a stylistic element, and I guess Sebold can change minor details for that, but it still irks me.


Up Next: The Best American Non-Required Reading 2002, ed. Dave Eggers. Nerd Alert: I confess: I chose this book so Nick and I could discuss it while he still remembers it.

I Heart Conspiracy Theories

I need this book. Like now.

Here come the (fake) traditions

I have been looking forward to the release of Rebecca Mead's book, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, about weddings ever since I read about its existence on the Contributors page of the New Yorker however many months ago. No, I am not obsessed with weddings, nor do I dream of having a huge, Cinderella-esque bash once my beau and I decide it no longer makes sense to pay two insurance premiums when we could really only be paying for one (because I've come to realize that for me, getting married is more a mostly fiscally smart decision than a changing-the-way-I-think-about-my-boyfriend decision. Is the way I treat Nick going to change after we are legally linked for life? (I would say after we both share the same last name, but as of right now, I don't think I'll be taking on his last name in any manner. It just doesn't sound nice. Don't worry, he agrees. Also the idea of me having to change all of my documents and my name just because he is the man in the relationship really doesn't sit well with me. Also I don't believe in that hyphenation shit. I reserve the right to change my mind when the time comes.) I really doubt it.

Anyway, this book is less about the idea of marriage and more about the insanity that has become the wedding industry in America. Think everyone has always received diamond rings for their engagement ring? You would be wrong. It didn't start until the 1940s by "a very clever copywriter." That's right: your "traditional" diamond ring is the genius invention of a company to see diamond rings. Way to be clay in their hands.

Actually the book isn't so much about stuff like that either. It's about how people will basically go bankrupt to have a big, huge, and lavish wedding because they think that's what they're supposed to do, for whatever reason. This is interesting to me because almost at almost every step of my sister's wedding planning process (I have, unfortunately (everyone will be glad to know that I am still incapable of spelling unfortunately without the spellchecker), taken the role of Wedding Planner), I have wondered why. Why do we need to by a veil when it is quite obvious the the original reason for it does not apply? Why do we need to buy an expensive dress? Why do we need to have dinner at a fancy country club, complete with band and floral arrangements for each table? Why, why why?

I have yet to reach any answer for these questions short of, "because that's what happens at a wedding." This answer isn't good enough for me, because it just seems insane to spend $20,000 (and this is apparently a cheap wedding) on a day that won't be too enjoyable for you and your mate. Why not spend that money on a down payment for a house? I guess you'll do what you want to do in the end. And believe me, so will I when the time comes.

After reading the Q & A from Salon.com and finding out what else the book is about, why it doesn't make sense that Disney markets weddings based on a children's story and children's fantasies (Cinderella, princesses, etc.), and does it with hoards and hoards of willing customers, when getting married is supposed to be celebrating the stepping into adulthood. Ahh, marketing.

Suggestions, please!

I have finally decided to start exchanging my baked goods for money. I have been thinking about this for awhile, and mostly put it off because of my insane lack of time. But after the rave reviews of my mini-cheesecakes and peanut butter pie for a co-workers wedding shower on Thursday, I finally decided to do it, but start out small. So for Thanksgiving this year, I will be advertising my pumpkin cheesecakes and pumpkin mini-cheesecakes. I plan on making a website and all of that fun stuff, but I have a problem: I need a name.

I don't think I want my name involved and I don't want it just centered on cheesecakes since I intend on expanding my menu after I graduate and move out and generally have time to do what I want to do. And since I am horrible at even coming up with titles for stories I write, I need your help. Send suggestions, please! And try to make it something that is easily transferable into a domain name. Thankee!

Quick! How can we brainwash the kids better?

I just finished reading Jill Lepore's article, "The Meaning of Life," in the May 21st New Yorker (sorry, it's not available on the website, for once) about the Game of Life, Nick's favorite board game. I had always enjoyed Life as a child, but when subjected to playing four games of it back to back with my cousin's kids, I came to realize that Nick was correct in hating it. It is horrible and boring and molds kids into money-craving consumers.

At one point, I had selected my house and picked the Tudor (you have to pick randomly from face-down cards). My cousin's daughter ended up picking the Farmhouse and was upset that my house was bigger. After insisting that hers was obviously better because it had more personality, she still disagreed solely because mine was bigger. Ugh. She was later obsessed with making more money than everyone else. This is an 8 year old. Sad, sad times. And yet another reason why I will not be having kids. No matter what you teach them to value, their minds will become polluted with the crap that their friends think.

Anyway, the reason why I'm mentioning this article is for two reasons: one, Hasbro, the company that bought Milton Bradley, is coming out with a new version of Life this summer called the Game of Life: Twists & Turns, and two, the original version of Life seems awesome. Apparently designers have been trying to revamp Life for years to make it not so money-hungry. Good luck. Apparently there isn't just one starting place and there are all sorts of crazy routes you can take, but instead of using paper money, they use a "Life-Visa-brand 'credit card' to insert in the game's electronic Life Pod, which keeps track of Life Points--earn more, spend more!" Uh. Visa claims that they're "not marketing to kids" with the Hasbro-Visa deal. Michael Rolnick, Visa spokesperson: "We are helping to educate kids. It's never too early." Which is nice and all, until you learn that the kids can keep playing the game even if they are in debt. Hasbro Games VP, George Burtch: "If you're bankrupt in Monopoly, you're watching. In this game, you can be hugely in debt, but you're still playing!" Thanks, Visa, for teaching kids early on that they can rack up credit card debt and they will still be able to live their lives as they always have been! Why wait to coerce college kids into debt when you can target 10-year-olds? This is quite nauseating. I would think that a board game company would have more respect for themselves than to exploit children for the benefit of a credit card company. Apparently, I am wrong.

On a less disturbing level (or maybe not), the original version of the Game of Life seems hilariously awesome. Awesome because you can land on suicide and lose the game all together: "Spinning a 2 from the red square between Ruin and Fat Office forces you to land on Suicide and die." I think this is exactly the kind of game kids need to play to learn about life.

Almost Delightful Randomness

A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing – ed. By T Cooper & Adam Mansbach

Well. That was quite different from what I expected, which was taking actual events and throwing in fiction to make them complete. And that was not what happened in this book at all. In fact, I’m not really sure what happened in this book. One minute I’m reading a letter from Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer about how he is working as a female prostitute (I’m still not sure how this worked) and the next I’m reading an interview with the grown up Lindbergh baby (apparently he wasn’t murdered after all). Uh? I will admit: I enjoyed the randomness, even if the stories themselves weren’t all too interesting. My old favorite for randomness in one book remains The Best American NonRequired Reading series. It’s just the best at what it does. Sorry, A Fictional History. Still, your cover is quite wicked.

Regardless of it not being the best of its kind, I still liked it. Sort of. In most cases I can see the connection to US history. I still think my concept of this book sounds much more interesting, though. I really must read A People’s History now, because I am slightly lost due to my lack of history knowledge and gullible-ness.

I must say that my favorite piece was the interview with the Lindbergh baby. Mysteries like the Lindbergh baby thing this fascinate me (I must find my book on Amelia Earhart) long after I’ve read all I can about a subject. For instance: the Bermuda triangle, the staged moon landing, UFOs, September 11th conspiracy theories (which I really need to start reading up on). This fictionalized interview was just so hilariously ridiculous though.

I also found the story about how the Chinese really discovered the Americas interesting. How could we ever know who discovered what first? It’s quite possible that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus. In fact, I’m quite sure that Columbus wasn’t the first here because, although we were taught in school that everyone thought Columbus was a nutter (like how I bring in current events with my choice of wording?) for thinking the world was round, this actually was not the case. No one thought the world was flat when Columbus decided to sail. I’m not sure why the story was spun this way, but someone at some point must have had the idea to do so (probably the same person who changed his name from Cristobol Colon).

So which stories were a waste of my time? How about the one where a woman decapitates one of her fellow travelers, cook and eat him for dinner, and then her husband masturbates underneath the wagon (because this story was obviously set in the 1840’s when people were going west in covered wagons). Other than that, I don’t think that any story was wasting my time. All the rest were vaguely entertaining in some way.

I really don’t have much more to say about it. This book was overall blah.

Up Next: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I had been asking for this book for years before my parents finally got it for me this past Christmas. And now I am finally getting around to reading it. How exciting!

Long Live the Cult

Peter Birkenhead's article on The Secret and Oprah is almost exactly how I feel about both subjects. Except he missed one point that is pretty apparent from being around people who have read/watched The Secret: it is a cult!

I'm not entirely sure why people find it harder to recognize cults if its members aren't secluding themselves and threatening to drink kool aid, but The Secret is definitely a cult. Have you ever heard someone speak about it? Ah! If someone really believes in what The Secret says, they will start spouting out nonsensical mantras without any regard to reason. For example, I have heard the following in my own house (believe me, I've spent many hours trying to undo this craziness, but for now, it seems like I'm getting nowhere):

If you think you will only get bills in the mail, you will only get bills in the mail. But, if you think you will get checks in the mail, you will get checks in the mail.

I'm not kidding, people. This is terrifying. Because it makes absolutely no sense! Where are you going to be getting checks from that you were previously unaware of? Please, tell me. It's absurd. And even worse, after a member of my family said this, the next day we received an unexpected letter saying we still had an uncashed rebate check from when I bought my computer in 2001. So that solidified things for the fam and now they are totally on The Secret bandwagon. I don't know how I can have such terrible luck. How can I get through to them?

Also, I've struggled with my feelings about Oprah for years. Yes, she's annoying, but she does do good things for people (and I'm not talking about her consumerizing America with her give away shows, I'm talking about actual charity). Either way, I never watch her show and rarely watch any show that she is on, which is why I missed the show for that school she opened for girls in Africa. I didn't care to watch it, mostly because I don't have any time to watch tv and if I do I'm watching taped episodes of Gilmore Girls, but also because right before that she held some party for her closest friends and showered them in gifts (including huge diamond jewelry). This disgusted me, especially since everyone was freaking out about it. But then I read Birkenhead's article and found out horrifying things about this school. Mostly, Oprah is more concerned with these girls growing up like a rich American than providing a good education. Daria was right: we live in a sick, sad world.

Oh yes, and one more thing

Forgot to mention before that I am finally getting around to reading Flannery O'Connor's The Complete Stories, which I got for Christmas three years ago. I decided to read little bits before bed when I feel like it. So I figure I should be done in about five years.

Education of the Blah

The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch

I will be honest: I started this book on the train after my Thursday night class and was angrily scribbling down notes within the first twenty pages. This book pissed me off beyond belief (and I went into it knowing that I would pissed off, hence my reaction to the banned terms lists from the back of the book when Nick first handed me the book). That being said, I blame both sides: right and left. The entire country is made of up big, whiny cry babies who are terrified of two things: kids learning things other than what their parents believe and kids learning how people handled issues in the past. I am not, by any means, supporting racism or sexism, but society has not always been like it is today (not that we have even remotely gotten rid of racism and sexism). I think it’s important that kids learn that things used to be worse and that they are getting better. They should learn that it was not right to own African Americans as slaves and that all people should be considered equal. They should learn that it was not right to treat women as lesser than men by not granting them the right to vote. How will they learn this? By seeing how things used to be and learning why that was wrong. It seems simple enough to me.

But then again, I am not in the group of people who think that in order for kids to learn that everyone is equal we should ignore that everyone isn’t (or wasn’t) always considered equal. Let’s just lead them to believe that everyone is, and always has been, equal and therefore that’s all they will know and obviously believe this. This is absolutely ridiculous (I know you probably already know this—at least I hope you do). As equally as ridiculous is being paranoid that you will offend someone with every word that is written in a textbook.

The bottom line is that publishers should be less worried about offending a group of people with some vague reference (like saying the use of an owl in a story about animals will offend Native Americans because they are a sign of evil) and be more concerned with how stupid, skill-less, and knowledge-less these kids are going to be (and already are). Nick and I were watching Jesus Camp the other week and one of the main kids that they followed told his mom that people who believed in evolution were stupid. This was horrifying (have I mentioned this before?). Yet some publishers are taking evolution out of textbooks because the Christian maniacs are complaining that intelligent design isn’t covered. In some cases they are including both. In a science textbook! How is intelligent design scientifically supported? Please, tell me. Censoring the textbooks is contributing to students being idiots. No wonder other countries kick our asses in test scores. We’re too busy worrying how many women are in pictures and that men and are seen crying and old people are not, by any means, portrayed as old people (Seriously, wtf is with the big concern about how old people are portrayed?) than making sure the kids are learning things that they need to know.

I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that schools/textbook publishers are being extremely overly sensitive. One of the underlying things that the groups don’t want in the textbooks is portraying old people doing things that old people do. I dare any of these people to spend two hours at Ann’s Choice and find one old person who is jogging vigorously or fixing a roof (this is how publishers were instructed to illustrate old people). Good god. People get old and they do old people things, like knitting and reading and sitting and eating and baking cookies (I should know, my grandparents live at Ann’s Choice and it’s a total old people convention for walking slow and eating all day). AH! They claim that this is ageism. No, it’s not! It’s describing old people! AHHHHH!!!!!

In order to not offend anyone in textbooks, a committee called the Bias and Sensitivity review looks over it before it’s published. They then make suggestions as to what is cut out (which is usually everything, even things that could in the very vaguest way offend someone). This is making kids entirely too sensitive. What is going to happen when they grow up and have to deal with people who are not concerned at all about their feelings? You think there is a high teen suicide rate now? I’m worried about what’s going to happen in 5-10 years. (Now that I mention this, I wonder if this has anything to do with the unusually high suicide rate in the local high schools in recent years. Perhaps the first wave of kids being raised in the I-don’t-want-to-hurt-their-feelings nonsense are now teenagers and they just can’t take people not kissing their asses or petting their heads and saying it’s alright when they do something wrong. I’m just saying. How are kids supposed to handle real life? I don’t think they can.)

But then again, the Bias and Sensitivity board does not care about children of European decent. And they’re not shy about it either. From a style guide from a textbook publisher: “[children of European decent] need to have their pride reduced…. [they have] received too much credit for achievements that really belonged to other cultures.” I don’t think I need to say anything about this.

Ravitch then made a big stink about teacher’s manual having exactly what to say during class. In a perfect world, this would not be necessary, but think of all the dumb kids you went to high school with who went to college for education because a) they wanted summers off or b)they didn’t think they could do anything else. Education is like the fall-back major. I’d like to see statistics on how many students go from Undeclared to Education. And I am not, by any means, saying it’s easy to be a teacher or that only dummies become teachers. My sister and my dad are both teachers and believe me, the summers off is not a consolation. There is no way you could get me to be a teacher. Sure, every now and then I think it might be fun to be a high school English teacher because I would really enjoy discussing writing and literature, but in reality, no high school students like to discuss the stuff they write or the books they read. I took AP Literature senior year and no one wanted to discuss the books, so I can guarantee that most regular students would not want to discuss on a regular basis. Perhaps the kids I went to high school with were just exceptionally stupid because we went to public school, but I want to say that wasn’t the case. Regardless, the result is always me thinking I’m crazy for toying with wanting to be a teacher. But sorry, Ravitch, lots of teachers are dumb dumbs and need exact scripts of what to say to the kids every day. And that’s sad, but that’s how the education system is in this country. Out of 12 years of public schooling, I can think of maybe five teachers (and that’s stretching it) who were actually engaging and made the stuff they were teaching us interesting. Again, may have been the public school, but I don’t think that’s to blame.

And I could keep going with the outrageousness but after awhile it’s just so mind-numbing that it gives you a hopeless outlook of today’s and future society. I feel badly for the kids who have to struggle through the boring crap that ends up in textbooks because its sterile and personality-less content proved to offend no one. This book started out as an article and after looking at all of the research she had, Ravitch then turned it into a book. It’s an important thing to discuss, but I think it would have been more effective left as an article. The Language Police is repetitive and just drives you into the ground with example after example of the education publishers, who all do the same thing. Yet she lists what each does separately. The shock wears off after the first fifty pages, leaving me to trudge through the last 130. It was tiresome (especially since they used an 8 point font).

Up Next: A Fictional History of the United States (with Huge Chunks Missing) edited by T Cooper & Adam Mansbach (This book is fun to read (sorry, I started it yesterday) because thanks to my public school education, I have no idea what the authors are fictionalizing and what they are telling the truth about. Perhaps one day I will read A People’s History of the United States and learn what I should have learned in those wasted 12 years (I actually think I will pick this up next time I see it).

Busy, Busy, Busy

In case you were worried, I did finish The Language Police and am still working on my review of it. Grad school and my sister's wedding have temporarily taken over my life. This review of Bjork and Tori Amos' new albums will have to tide you over until I return to normalcy (although that won't really happen for another two months). I was highly disturbed the other day when I heard Tori's new single with the lyrics "M-I-L-F don't you forget" repeated about five times. I hope she was kidding?

Oh My God Drew, I'm Addicted

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